One of the powerful skills you must develop as an adult, is the ability to meet for long time periods. I tell this to my students often and I think they get it. It's useful to train for the eventuality of too many meetings as you age. My personal record is five hours straight in a discussion about the exact same thing going on and on. I guess it's kind of like when you are a kid and try to figure out how long you can hold your breath. I wonder how long I can hold my breath now? Let me try. Hmmm, 40 seconds. I could have held it longer but I was afraid that I might break something.
As this day ends and we greet the weekend with open arms, I reflect upon a meeting I just left about a potential proposal to the US government. My eyes registered on symbols I'm not used to seeing on digital maps: guns, explosions, and so forth. The primary question on the table was to figure out what kind of technology our government could really use to fight all sorts of unforeseen conflicts.
And then it dawned upon me. In the same way that VisiCalc was the so-called "killer app" that heralded the concept of a spreadsheet and ignited the business computing boom, I figure that another software system that is waiting to be launched as another "killer app" would be called Scapegoat 1.0. This system would be positioned to run on a normal desktop computer with 512Mb of RAM, average graphics card, standard networking, and so forth. Its purpose would be to be shift the blame away from yourself in any political fallout situation to another targeted faction with point-and-click ease. It could be used in a purely defensive manner (the so-called "Lite" version), and the Professional Edition could ship with preemptive and offensive capabilities. A service contract add-on option would be available where you could have access to real lobbyists.
All kinds of machinations flowed freely through my head (I think I saw too many spy movies as a youth), until I came back to earth to shift back to the simple reality of art and creative expression. Phew, thank goodness I'm not an elected official, and instead I am just a guy that draws "pretty pictures." I have to go draw some now.
Posted by maeda at September 9, 2005 06:10 PM